Civilization #16: Julius Caesar's Will and Octavian's Birth of Empire

so um we are doing Octavius and the birth of the Roman Empire today okay so um let's review where we are the area is 44 BCE and Julius Caesar has just been assassinated um and the three main conspirators uh there are 60 Senators but the three main conspirators are Marcus buddhis who is considered the leader of the conspiracy um casassus and uh Deus Buddhist okay and after they assassinated um Caesar obviously Rome is in toror and Mark Anthony who is currently the council or the head of state in Rome um he reaches an agreement with these conspirators the agreement is this Mark Anthony who is a staun uh Ally of Julius Caesar he will not seek retribution and in return the conspirators will declare that Caesar was not a tyrant he did not want to become king okay so a peace settlement was reached to avoid a civil war um the problem is that Mark Anthony was working behind the the scenes to work up the Roman people against conspirators and eventually um public sment was so much against the conspirators that to flee to the provinces okay and then uh Mark Anthony read the will of Caesar okay Caesar's will remember that there's private property in Rome and so when a man dies he has a will and and then this will stipulates how this private property will be distributed okay and there are three really surprising things about the will the first thing is that Caesar right now is the wealthiest man in Rome and he stipulates that upon his death every Roman citizen will get three months of a soldier's wage that's a lot of money okay that's extreme generosity he also stipulates that a lot of his private property will be turned into public parks for the benefit of the Roman people so this will demonstrates Jesus's love of his people okay the second thing is actually more surprising Mark Anthony believe believed that he would be he would be named the hear to Caesar's Legacy and wealth in the in the will but in fact Caesar names his complete stranger to be his hair his name is Octavius and Caesar named Octavius to be his adopted son and so um Octavius name is actually gay Octavius and upon the adoption of upon his adoption he is now named gayes Julius Cesar Octavius this is like much too complicated so historians use to shorthand Octavian okay so we will name now name this person Octavian and this is the historical shorthand even though this is this is not his real name so that's a second big surprise in the will and the third big surprise is this Caesar names secondary hers these are individuals who uh will inherit Caesar's property and Legacy if avian were to die Mark Anthony is a secondary here but so is Decimus Brutus one of the man who conspired to kill Caesar okay so this will of Caesars it is shocking uh and it shows to the people that Caesar really loved them and that Caesar loved everyone includ including the people who conspired to kill him okay Mark Anthony um is very upset about this will so that when Octavian and Octavian right now he's only 18 years old okay he's only 18 years old and he returns to claim his legacy Mark Anthony AR Mark Anthony is so upset that he refuses to meet with Octavian and he refuses to give E's property and wealth to Octavian remember the first um stipulation of the will is that every Roman citizen will be given three months of wages okay and Octavian what he does is to honor cus will he borrows money and this is a lot of money in order to ensure that every citizen got three months of wages um so in this situation okay and this is only a few months after sheas deatha this is now a volatile Game of Thrones situation Game of Thrones Mark Anthony considers himself the legitimate hearer of Caesar and refuses to acknowledge octav Octavian Octavian has returned and demands to be acknowledged as the hear okay so that's one um conflict the other conflict is you have these three conspirators Decimus Buddhist um Marcus Buddhist and Casas and they're not in Rome but they're in the provinces with huge armies okay so Des Buddhist he is in Gul uh Marcus buddas and casassus are in the Roman East which includes Anatolia and Syria okay extremely wealthy provinces where they have many loyal soldiers and they understand that eventually there's a conflict coming so they rais a huge Army about 100,000 soldiers to prepare for the event ual conflict and this is like the largest army ever assembled in Roman history um you also have a name named lepus who um is a very competent administrator and he has his own Army and he actually wanted to avenge Caesar uh but Mark stopped him okay so lepidus is also part of the equation in the center is a name named Cicero cisero is considered one of the greatest orators in Roman history um it was very common it's very common as part of Liber education to study the speeches of ciso okay and ciso is the last remaining optimate when the optimat are the ones who are conservatives and who believe in the pracy of the Senate so ciso is right now in charge of the Senate and everyone in this Game of Thrones has a different motivation right so ciso his main motivation is to maintain the supremacy of the Senate so he wants a balance of power so what he will do is he will play everyone off against each other in order to maintain the supremacy of the Senate and therefore his authority okay that's ciso um Octavian wants to be the hear of Caesar but so so is Mark Anthony and lepides also wants to be a hear as well and then on the other side our Decimus Buddhist Marist Buddhist and Casas who are fighting for their own legacy okay so this is this is the situation in 44 BCE and it's a Game of Thrones situation and you could you would expect the one who would most likely lose this game of thrones would be Octavian right he's 18 years old he's got no Army uh and he has no allies in Rome what happens over the next um 15 years is one by one Octavian destroys all his enemies what happens first is that Mark Anthony goes to war with desus Buddhist desus Buddhist is in charge of Gaul and Mark Anthony wants the armies of desus Buddhist so Mark Anthony marches against desus Buddhist and then ciso to maintain the amounts of power he authorizes Octavian to raise his own Army to challenge Mark Anthony okay so now they're at war with each other eventually Mark Anthony loses and then he steals basically leop his army to March against uh desus Buddhists again and at this point what happens is very strange the three of them lepidus Octavian and Mark Anthony they sit they sit down together and they they agree to share power and form their own dictatorship this is what we call the second triumphant okay the second serent is brutal they the first one they decided to do is kill all their enemies anyone who could challenge them including Cyro who was previously the patrin of Octavia right so they killed about a third of the Senate and replace everyone with uh replace a senate with their allies then Mark Anthony Octavian marched against uh Marcus Buddhist and casassus okay desus buddist has been destroyed they now March against M Mar Marcus Buddhist and cist and in 42 BCE they fight the Battle of Philippi in macedone in Macedonia okay Philippi is a city named after King Phillip and in this battle um Mark Anthony and Octavian Triumph in the largest Battle in History at that time okay and after this battle where Marcus buddist and Cas are killed um Octavian Mark Anthony and lipides agree to Shear the world so Octavian would get Rome uh lipides would get Northern Africa and Mark Anthony would get Egypt and the near East Anatolia Syria so Mark Anthony basically gets the line shear of the Roman World okay and they agree to share it then what happens is lepidus comes into conflict with Mark Anthony well sorry leopardus comes in conflict with Octavian and Octavian gives a speech to leopardus soldiers who all defect over to Octavian then Octavian comes in contct with Mark Anthony and in 31 BCE at the Battle of um um what what what what's that battle called again 31 AUM sorry AUM in Greece it's a huge battle where Anthony's forces are aligned with Cleopatra forces against um Octavian in this battle what happens is uh basically Mark Anthony and cleopetra they run away from the battle where and then they return to Alexandria and then um Octavian goes and hunts them down and and they both commit suicide before they're captured and then this ends in 27 BC when Octavian returns to the Senate the Roman senate in Triumph and they declare him Augustus Caesar okay Augustus Caesar his name has out change to Augustus Caesar and he's considered the first emperor of Rome okay so this is the brief history now I want to ask the question how did Octavian again who in 44 BC he's only 18 years old he has no Army and has very few allies in Rome how is he able to triumph over everyone okay all right and there are different explanations um the first you you can say it's just well he got lucky okay um yeah I know he I he was lucky and that's that that is a possibility but um you don't become emperor by becoming lucky okay so that's that that that doesn't suffice second is you can say he was brilliant Julius Caesar was brilliant right um King Philip alason was brilliant these are all brilliant people very few people say OCT um Octavian was a brilliant person he didn't have the Charisma of Julius Caesar his oration was good but nowhere near as good as say Mark Anthony's or or other Romans okay and he and it was it's generally agreed upon that he was a terrible terrible military leader and strategist he want he lost a lot of Wars sorry he lost a lot of battles during this conflict okay so he was not a great military leader so he was not brilliant I mean he was brilliant in his own way he was brilant politically um but he was not brilliant in the traditional sense Okay the third explanation is well he's is ruthless he will do anything for power and again this is true there is some truth to this but guess what in the Roman World everyone was ruthless right Mark Anthony was especially ruthless Mark Anthony killed his own wife okay so that doesn't explain it fourth is um the legions the army they remembered Caesar Julius Caesar and now that Octavian is considered the son of Julius Caesar the legions swore loyalty to him and that is true okay but they also swore loyalty to Mark Anthony and you can you can argue Mark anthy had a stronger claim to Cesar's Legacy than Octavian so that by itself doesn't explain it either next explanation is Marcus agria and Marcus agria is considered um octavian's partner and he was considered a great General and it was actually Marcus AG gria who was responsible for all of octavian's major uh military victories especially the Battle of actium which which basically ended the Civil War and this again is true Marcus AGA is a brilliant military leader but so were cassus desus okay there were other brilliant military leaders the other issue is that in this ruthless world of Roman politics how could Octavian trust Marcus Agrippa and why did Marcus AGA stay loyal to Octavian okay okay so these are five explanations and there's all some truth to that okay but I want to offer you today another explanation and the explanation is this the death of Caesar allow Octavian to become emperor okay and here's my argument remember last class we said that Caesar his greatness was in his ma myth making genius he created a myth of himself that he was a man of Destiny who would save the Republic but his myth was counter to other myths that were that were more dominant in Rome especially the myth of Lucius Buddhist right Lucius Buddhist the man who created the Republic and killed the king and so Caesar had this great myth but it was against other dominant myths when Caesar was killed it made his myth the dominant myth of Rome in fact it turned his myth into reality and it was this new reality that propelled Octavian into Power Okay so another simple way of saying this is that it was the love of the Roman people that propelled Octavian into power and we see this in history all the time right so for example um in Canada douas from Canada so so am I there's a man named Justin trudo the most incompetent person politician you will ever meet okay but he's prime minister and he's been prime minister for like 10 years right why because his father is Pier too who is considered one of most popular uh prime ministers in Kenan history right so so it was basically people's transferring their love of Pier chudo onto the sun okay so that's one example the other example of course in America is George W bush right whose father was George HW Bush who was considered um you know a very good president okay so is it yeah yeah do just just to add in a little bit thean y right that's right his legacy everybody yeah that's right so so if you think about it politics political change it's really about of myths right if you want to create political change you have to change people's under you have to change the myths and new governments will create new myths okay all right great all right so um that's a basic thesis okay so let me explain it some more okay so let's go back to the death of Julie C the assassination of Julie C and um there were three major assassins as I said Decimus Buddhist uh Marcus Buddhas who is the leader in casassus and they were just the leaders of a huge conspiracy that involved 60 Senators that's about 7% of the Roman senate that's a lot of people man right 7% of the Roman senate and each of these individuals had different reason for wanting Caesar death okay so desus Buddhist was considered Julie Caesar's most competent General okay and he wanted to be acknowled as such so you could say that desus Buddhist he was driven by jealousy or maybe fored ambition okay you want to prove he prove that he was better than Julius Caesar so that's SES Buddhas Cassius is a different story cassus fought for Pompei the Great and um because cassus was such a great General Julius Caesar showed Mercy to him and forgave him and made him a general his his own General okay so this is Caesar demonstrating his benevolence and clemency and mercy the problem is that in the Roman World Mercy um is not considered a good okay so by showing Mercy on casassus cassus could have interpreted interpreted this as uh Caesar showing contemp for him Caesar didn't really see him as a threat okay and so C Cassis might have been motivated by a sense like a desire for vengeance right Marcus Buddhist is the most interesting uh exam the most interesting person here and actually you know Shakespeare wrote a play about Marcus Brutus called Julius Caesar okay but it was really about Marcus Brutus it was it was trying to explain the psychology and motivations of why Marcus Buddhist would want Caesar dead Okay um Marcus Buddhist did fight for pompe the great but he's also the son of Julius Caesar's favorite mistress favorite lover and so Julius Caesar made a point of telling his soldiers do not kill this guy guy in battle if you see him capture him and send him to me and so bu Buddhas was Marcus buddist was captured and Julius Caesar adopted him basically um as a son and he basically um fast-tracked Marcus buddist career and so Marcus budus had every reason to thank Julius Caesar right but instead Marcus budus becomes the major the main conspirator and in the play by Shakespeare Julius Caesar uh the argument that Shakespeare makes is Marcus Buddhist is driven by his own sense of virtue okay basically vanity he he he believes or he's told that he's named after lucus buddhis the found of Republic and therefore he has a responsibility to save the Republic from wan to be tyrants like Caesar and that's what drives him what what she doesn't mention though is what Romans believe is that Marcus Buddhist is the son the biological son of Judas Caesar okay so so maybe there was that inter personal Dynamic where Marcus Buddhas um despised Caesar okay right so it's a very complicated situation but what unites everyone is that it's a feeling that Rome was changing too fast okay okay so remember Julius Caesar he did what he did in order in order to save the Republic to restore the Republic and so when he when he had obtained power he was making changes that were necessary but which changed the Roman sense of themselves okay so one example is he brought in senators from the provinces and these were Aristocrats who spoke perfect Latin but because he was from the provinces and there were foreigners the Roman people were very upset by this okay that's the first thing second thing is seizure anded corruption in the provinces and that goes against the interest of the nobility because one way for you to become rich as a noble person is to go to provinces and steal a lot of money okay so Caesar was doing a lot of things that were good for the Empire and for the Republic in the long term but which hurt the interests of um the Senators and nobility in the short term this is what caused the conflict okay and because Caesar was so fast and so effective in its reforms it not only sort of disturb the nobility but also Disturbed the people as well because Romans are very conservative they were not used to all these changes happening so fast and so this is what compelled um the conspira to act against Caesar okay but this race is a very interesting question Caesar is a genius he's brilliant how could he not see this coming right how could he not imagine the possibility that people were conspiring against him and the answer okay this this this is hard um for us to understand today but it was unimaginable that they would conspire to kill Caesar in the Senate okay so there are lots of taboos in Rome one major taboo is the idea of the pr Miriam okay the promium is just means the boundary of Rome and the idea here is that Rome the city of Rome the fiscal Geographic space of Rome it is sacred and divine it is protected by the god gods and therefore you are not allowed to bring weapons into Rome okay if you're a soldier you must come in as a private citizen you're not allowed to come in as a soldier you are not allowed to commit acts of violence within the promium otherwise the gods will spite you the go the gods will take Vengeance against you okay so that's the first taboo second taboo is this the Senate is considered the most most sacred and divine space in the entire um in in all of Rome and so no one's allowed to bring weapons no no one's allowed to commit violence in the Senate okay also the Senate's laws are basically the laws of the Gods the Senate declared the body of Jud judices to be sa okay meaning Divine and sacred you are not allowed to touch the body of Julius Caesar Okay the third thing is that everyone in the Senate was personally appointed by Julius Caesar so everyone owed their Good Fortune to the generosity of Julius Caesar okay you you understand it was just unimaginable for Julius Caesar to think that his friends could be conspiring against him okay does that make sense so far guys okay was beyond on the imagination of um Julius Caesar but if this is true then something else is true which is that Julius Caesar did not want to become king because being King was the ultimate Taboo in Rome does does that make sense Julius Caesar could not imagine that budhist would kill him because he like all Romans believed in these taboos and the ultimate taboo was wom could never should never have a king so he himself did not want to become king he was behaving very arrogantly he was behaving like a king but he did not him but he would not become king himself because it would go against the Roman Republic it would defy all the taboos of the Roman Republic okay and also before Caesar there's also an another dictator named Sola okay the example of Sola is he's a man who comes into Power kills all his enemies and then he retires okay he could become king but he chose to not become king because to become king would mean the death of the Republic and that's that taboo that's a Rubicon he refused to cross okay so we can imagine that Caesar saw himself as a better solar okay as a more merciful Sola he would not kill his enemies he would show generosity to his enemies and he would restore the Republic to its greatness he would make the necessary reforms then he would retire and lead the Republic as it was okay okay does that make sense all right so it was unimaginable for Caesar that to think that he'll be killed and also what's interesting is what do you think happened to these three individuals after they killed Caesar right they killed Caesar because they feared Caesar would become king but after they killed Caesar what they recognize is they could only kill Caesar because Caesar did not want to become king right otherwise Caesar would surround himself with bodyguards otherwise Caesar would not make himself available to his enemies so a the death of Caesar all his enemies tmus Marcus and cus realize they were in the wrong but not only that but the very attitude of the people of Rome changed right uh while Caesar was alive the Roman people were very skeptical towards Caesar because they feared that he would become king right they love Caesar but they were afraid that Caesar was too ambitious but upon the death of Caesar the one people felt tremendous guilt for doubting Caesar does that make sense right because it was your doubt that allowed the conspirators to kill Caesar if all they did was believe in Caesar if they believe that in Caesar's myth that he was here as a man of Destiny to restore the Republic and that's all he cared about he didn't want to become king then Cesar would still be alive okay and to compound the guilt Caesar showered the people with generosity upon his death right okay so you can see how the death of Caesar creates this new creates this new reality where people now recognize Caesar did not want to become king all he wanted to do was save the Republic and people are now um they're sort of sort of paralyzed by their guilt all right so the evidence for this is this while Decimus Brutus was being attacked by Mark Anthony and then later by Octavian casassus told Marcus brutes hey maybe we should come to this guy's Aid he's our Ally if he falls they're going to come after us next and Marcus Buddhas did nothing he refused to act all right and the reason why is he could not act he killed Julius Caesar because Julius Caesar was too ambitious but if Marcus Buddhas were to move his Army against Rome then Marcus Brutus is the ambitious one he's the one who wants to become king right therefore Marcus Brutus and cases could only wait for their deaths because if they the case to believe that Caesar wanted to become king wasn't true it could be true and therefore they committed wrong against Rome by killing Caesar okay does that make sense so this explains his enemies how about Mark Anthony okay so Mark Anthony had a different problem Mark Anthony loved Caesar so much he wanted to continue Caesar's Legacy and Mark Anthony sort of felt betrayed by Caesar when Cesar named Octavian to be the hear and not Mark Anthony okay and so what does Mark Anthony want to do now well he wants to prove that Caesar is wrong Mark wants to prove that he is the rightful hear of Caesar and to prove so he will continue his legacy okay so Mark Anthony started to do some started to do things that were against his own personal self-interest and what which ultimately led to his self-destruction the first thing that he did was he marched against the parthians the parthians are Rome's last great enemy okay Rome destroyed Carthage Rome destroyed the Greeks but the parthians still had an Empire to the east of Rome and Romans Roman generals uh fa to make enrolls against against Parthia and in fact Julius Caesar he wanted to basically end his life by invading partha okay so Julius Caesar's Plan before his death was to attack partha conquer it then sweep back to Europe and Conquer Germany okay basically conquer the whole world to prove he's better than than a the great so Mark eny decides that this is how he will prove he is Caesar's rightful here by finishing seizures um Legacy against AP parthians okay the problem is Romans are not good again are not good at war against the parthians and the Persians okay because the Romans are infantry focus and the parans and the Persians are Cavalry Focus right they have horses so marinan goes over to Parthia and he gets his ass kicked all right he gets his askap he's not Julius Caesar he's not the here to Julius Caesar he and he falls into a major depression he basically becomes a drunk okay that's his first major mistake second major mistake he makes is he falls in love with Cleopatra Cleopatra is the queen of of Egypt but much more importantly she is the Mistress of julus Caesar in fact rumors were that upon his retirement Julius Caesar would bring Cleopatra to Rome and he would live happily ever after okay that's the rumor so Mark Anthony goes over to Egypt and he becomes the lover to Cleopatra okay because he's trying to be Julius Caesar now and this is a problem because to to marry Cleopatra he has to divorce his wife who happens to be the sister of Octavian okay so this causes a personal riff between Octavian and Mark Anthony the third thing that that he does which is what causes his demise is he names in his will okay he names it his will that his children of Cleopatra will become thees to the Roman East all the property all that land that um Mark the controls will be given to his children with Cleopatra they're foreign citizens and also markon does not have the authority to give that land out to his children only the Senate has the authority okay so Mark so Octavian used the will as a pretext to attack Mark Anthony and he's heavily supported by the Roman people okay so what so Mark Anthony because he's trying so hard to escape the shadow of Julius Caesar because he's trying so hard to prove he is a legitimate he to jul Caesar he basically self-destructs he didn't have to do any of this but he did and by doing all this it guarantees his destruction okay so Marky basically self-destructs let's look at um lepidus okay leopardus he is an extremely effective administrator but he is not as chartic as charismatic and as brilant as J Caesar and leopard is basically sh away okay he didn't have the confidence to challenge Octavian for the ultimate power and seeing this lack of confidence in this insecurity his soldiers basically went off to join Octavian okay and a lot of soldiers did that a lot of soldiers that were fighting for the enem side would just jump ship because Octavian is the hear of Julius Caesar okay he is the new Julius Caesar they all worship Julius Caesar right now let's look at Octavian why did Octavian exceed so much again um he became partners with Marcus agria who was a much better General than him but Octavian again he was not a brilant man he was not charismatic he was not a great General but he believed himself to be the he to Julius Caesar for whatever reason Julius Caesar believed in him and therefore he had a responsibility to finish the legacy of his father okay which is to restore the woman Republic and that meant he had to do whatever sacrifice was necessary in order to do so okay so the difference between uh Octavian and the others was he acted he wasn't very successful but he was willing to act whereas Marcus Brutus was not willing to act and when you act sometimes you will succeed okay and only a few successes will allow you to become the the emperor of Rome it was it was driven by the fact that he believed himself to be the hear of Julius Caesar he was a son of Julius Caesar Julius Caesar believed in him therefore has a responsibility to restore the Republic and that's why he trusted Marcus AG gria okay and that's why Marcus AG gria trusted him they were all fighting for the legacy of Julius Caesar and that's why ultimately the Roman people allow Octavian to amass so much power right so remember ran people have been taught to fear Kings but over time Octavian was in power for 40 years okay Augustus Cesar was in power for 40 years over time he became even more powerful than the King this is what he did he amassed all powers to himself after he conquered Egypt he made Egypt into his own personal property okay this was a private estate he used all the money from Egypt again remember Egypt is right now and for the longest time the wealthiest country in in the world at this time okay they have so much wealth he uses money in order to have his own Army before the Roman army was loyal to the Senate now because it was octav himself who personally paid every soldier in the Army which is now a professional Army they're now loyal to the emperor okay he took Gaul which was um you know which was land that Julia Caesar basically de depopulated with genocide and he gave the land to his veterans okay so basically he made the entire Army loyal to him personally so he he now has the power of God the ROM people allowed him to do that because they believe that like Octavian sorry like Julius Caesar Octavian was driven by his sense of mission his desire to save and restore the ran Republic But ultimately uh because they believed him too much a Caesar would destroy the Republic and concentrate all power in his hands okay does that make sense all right any questions yeah okay that's a great question okay so why did Julius Caesar name Octavian as it here and not Mark Anthony okay so Octavian is the great uh nephew of jsh Caesar so uh Octavian was um Julius Caesar's sister's uh grandson okay and so um Octavian basic grew up with Julius Caesar like they knew each other very well but as Eko says Mark Anthony is the man who is most loyal to Caesar okay the the the most trusted Lieutenant of Caesar why didn't Caesar trust him the answer is Caesar as a genius he doesn't care about loyalty he cares about Talent he cares about ability and Mark Anthony was a notorious hot head he had a violent temper he was a drunk okay I mean he he just had like Terri terrible personal qualities so an example of this is while um Caesar was off campaigning against Pompei he put Mark Anthony in charge of Rome and all Mark Anthony did was piss everyone off he got a fights with the Senate he was so bad that that c had no choice but to replace with lepidus okay so Mark Anthony was in Tor hotthead he was emotionally unstable he was emotionally volatile and so Caesar Caesar didn't really trust him even though Mark Anthony Mark Anthony would give his life for Caesar does that make sense okay so Octavian was considered much more competent much more levelheaded and Caesar was correct in his in his assessment because Octavian was a brilliant political manipulator okay being an emperor is very hard he was Emperor for 40 years so he had to balance all these different political factions within Rome okay so great question Echo okay any more questions or comments about this argument is is all clear sure give you a great the uh you talking about how yes that's right I always that yeah start thinking ass that's right that's right yeah I mean it's it was very hard to kill Caesar okay so they were in the Senate there were 60 conspirators okay they all brought knives they were they theyit hit the knives the daggers in the toga okay they were all supposed to like lunch cesure together so but when you but only five Senators only five Senators actually physically attacked Caesar everyone else just stood paralyzed because as you as you said it was taboo it was the ultimate taboo to commit violence in the Senate so they were all paralyzed by this fear even though they had this intense hatred of Caesar okay they they they had for months imagine how they would go about killing Caesar okay they had plan they had they had this plan meticulously but when it came to actually acting it out they couldn't do it only five actually managed to take out their D and uh stab Caesar in fact the first person who attacked Caesar um stood behind Caesar uh while Caesar was um making talking to the Senate and he was shaking okay and he only managed to like pin prick Caesar in the back okay this is where we get the idea of backstabbing from so and it and Cesar didn't really notice he was like hey what are you doing man okay Cesar wasn't really hurt by this even Caesar even though he was being attacked could not imagine that anyone would be so bold enough to break all these taboos and attack him okay so uh um I mean it was a it was um incredible act that forever changed woman history all right it was it was just unimaginable that anyone could attack anyone in the Senate like physically okay especially um the dictator the Julius Caesar who was considered Divine and Sacred by the Roman people okay so it was an incredible act of violence okay and only five people actually participated in attacking him and it took a very long time because it was so hard to must the strength to stab Caesar and again all the Senators are like soldiers okay they're physically very strong they're General they're used to killing people it wasn't fear of death it was just fear of bringing this ultimate taboo of the Roman senate okay so thank thanks for that Doug any any more questions before I finish okay okay so um Octavian Augustus Caesar was considered the first and the greatest emperor of the Roman Empire and like Julius Caesar him he did not consider himself the emperor he considered himself like First Citizen okay or the first man in the Senate and his responsibility was to ensure the Eternal prosperity and stability of the uh Roman Republic and so um towards towards um his old age he had to consider the public sorry he had to consider the problem problem of secession right he was a great emperor but the second Emperor had to be had to be great as well and so his solution was this his solution would be he would adopt the most competent relative that he had to be Emperor and he create this new system where Emperors would be adopted okay so the best man in Rome would always be adopted into the Imperial throne and um Augustus Caesar had the perfect man his name is germanicus germanicus was very much like Julius Caesar brilliant speaker loved by his soldiers the problem was that he was too young okay Jus was too young so he needed a transition and so he appointed his stepson Tiberius um who was pretty old at this point okay to be the transition tiberious was not charismatic um he was not very popular but he was competent he was a comp competent administrator he'd be Emperor for like five to 10 years and then when germanicus um was came of age then germanicus would inherit the throne and he' be a good Emperor and as a good Emperor you would then you would you would then be able to find someone else who had who who had good talent and you would appoint him the next Emperor if you had this system this system could go on forever right and so this is BR system the problem was hiberus okay tyberius didn't like the idea that he could not appoint his sucessor okay so what did he do well he killed dramaticus but not only did he kill germanicus he killed um basically all of germanicus family okay and not only did he kill janus's family but he killed well he killed a lot of people okay and then he adopted someone named Kula um who was janica's um youngest son um to be the emperor and kaga was a notoriously bad Emperor okay so this system broke down very quickly even though Augustus Caesar his intention was to um uh continue the legacy of Julius Caesar and create an eternal prosperity for the Roman Republic okay and with by the time you got to tiberious the system collapsed and you could make the argument that uh tiberious marked the death of the Roman Empire okay the Roman Empire will continue for another like 300 years but it's basically dead Okay meaning that it was racked by all these internal Revolt internal tensions and it was only because of its size and inertia was able to continue for so long okay so um we will next class we will finish Rome by discussing uh the Roman Legacy okay what is Rome's contribution to western civilization and this will mainly have to do with um the legacy of Augustus Caesar right any questions okay all right great so uh we will continue we will finish with Rome next class and then we'll start Egypt okay and Egypt will be a lot of fun